were for a long
time characteristic traits of the majority of the people. The air was
peopled with demons, the devil himself was no infrequent visitor,
witches and fortune tellers were not without influence, and stealthily,
by night, many mystic rites were celebrated. Many of the Christian
beliefs of the time are likewise the result of ignorance and
superstition, but at that time, naturally, only the pagan ideas were
condemned. Accordingly, while the law of the Goths recognized trial by
ordeal, wherein God is summoned to bear miraculous witness in favor of
the innocent, the same law condemned belief in witchcraft! The favorite
ordeal among the Goths was trial by red-hot iron. The Church took charge
of this ceremony, which was accompanied by a most solemn ritual, and all
this was legal and religious and approved by the highest authorities!
But the poor witches had to go! It was charged that they were able to
produce storm and ruin by means of their incantations, that they offered
nightly sacrifices to devils, and that in general they were in league
with the powers of darkness and productive of much disorder.
Furthermore, soothsayers were not to be consulted concerning the death
of a king; and any freeman disobeying this edict was soundly flogged,
lost his property by confiscation, and was condemned to perpetual
servitude. These mysterious and redoubtable old women who gathered
simples upon the mountain side and dealt in the black art had formerly
been very numerous, and, although they have always continued to exist in
Spain, their number was much diminished by means of the enforcement of
the new law.

In addition to the various social and political questions which were
demanding settlement at this time, there was a matter of ecclesiastical
difference which caused great trouble and confusion. The Goths, though
Christians, belonged to the Arian branch of the Church, while the
Spaniards were firm believers in the Athanasian or Latin form of
Christianity, and the struggle for supremacy between the two went on for
many years before either side was willing to submit. Near the beginning
of the sixth century, Clothilda, daughter of the Frankish king, Clovis,
was married to Amalaric, the Gothic king, whose capital was then in the
old city of Narbonne. Political advantages were supposed to come from
this international alliance, but the results were quite to the contrary.
The queen was an Athanasian, and the king an Arian Catholic,